Where’s the Crisis, Greta? Climate Science Experts Say the Earth Is Going Through a Warming Period (but That’s a Good Thing)

FILE – In this July 18, 2018, file photo, lawyers and youth plaintiffs lineup behind a banner after a hearing before Federal District Court Judge Ann Aiken between lawyers for the Trump Administration and the so called Climate Kids in Federal Court in Eugene, Ore. The U.S. government is trying once again to block a major climate change lawsuit days before young activists are set to argue at trial that the government has violated their constitutional rights by failing to take action climate change. On Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018, the Justice Department for a second time this year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss the case. The high court in July denied the request as premature. (Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard via AP, File)

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Time Magazine wondered Monday why the 2020 World Economic Forum, which took place in Davos, Switzerland in the waning days of January, turned into what they called a “climate change conference.”

The answer, of course, is easy: Because teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was in attendance, reiterating her calls to “listen to the science” and shaming the world for failing to “treat this crisis with the importance it deserves.”

Unfortunately for the young,  “prophet of doom” (as President Donald Trump called her), there are climate experts who, in fact, make it their business to study the science and they have a simple question for Miss Thunberg and all “climate justice” activists:

Where exactly is the crisis?

Steve Milloy, a biostatistician and securities lawyer by trade who helms JunkScience.com to battle the panic-inducing narrative of climate change activism; and Anthony Watts, a former weather man and climate change activist who shifted focus to skepticism after studying climate data, both agree the earth is going through a slight warming period. Which means, to an extent, they agree with Greta.

Where they part ways is both men say the warming is actually a good thing.

Watts, who runs the site WattsUpWithThat.com, recently penned an article for The Heartland Institute debunking the recent NASA/NOAA report calling 2019 the second warmest year ever on record. He has a word for climate change activists: “eco-chondriacs.”

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“It means that these activists are constantly worried about climate change and what disaster might happen,” he says. “But they pay no attention to all the things that were predicted that never happened, like the dangerous sea-level rise predicted in the 80s or the millions of climate refugees we were supposed to see. None of those things happened.”

Watts admits there is a slight warming period occurring presently, but notes mankind has tended to fare better in warmer periods such as in the Roman and medieval warm periods.

“By contrast, the Dark Ages cooling period saw lower crop yields, widespread disease, and death,” Watts says. “So, I ask Greta: where’s the crisis? I just don’t see it.”

Milloy, who also tackled the NASA/NOAA report for a piece at Real Clear Markets, agrees that the warming period is happening and argues that it’s a good thing for humanity.

And, Milloy says, he sees a lot more than climate concern going on in the efforts of Greta Thunberg and people such as these Amazon employees who led a mass strike Sunday against company climate policy. He says what they’re really exhibiting is a disturbing affinity for collectivism.

“It’s totally collective in nature,” says Milloy, who sees a hard swing toward anti-capitalism in the fact that Thunberg has been “hanging out” with long-time socialist and activist Naomi Klein. Klein’s newest book, “The (Burning) Case For a Green New Deal,” essentially makes the case that climate change success demands “war with capitalism.”

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The worry, Milloy says, is that “a lot of young people are embracing these ideas. Greta herself is using Marxist rhetoric when she talks about climate justice or instituting a ‘system change’.”

But what they don’t talk about, says Milloy, is what he covers in his piece at Real Clear Markets: that the Earth has been in a general warming trend since the mid-17th century, a period otherwise known as the coldest part of the Middle Ages’ Little Ice Age.

And while Milloy, like Watts, acknowledges the slight warming trend – “1.1 C or so higher than pre-industrial times” – he writes very plainly that, “So far warming has been good for Earth and humanity.”

Watts says the warm up leads to a “greening of the Earth,” in which the warmer temperatures lead to better agricultural production and declares it the “positive” side of climate change.

“Activists don’t like to talk about the good side of climate change because almost all climate science is government funded,” Watts says. “Without a crisis, they can’t get their funding.”

Milloy — who, remember, sees more than a little socialism in the pervasiveness of climate activism — is even more blunt.

“It’s not about controlling the weather,” he says. “It’s about controlling you.”

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